Otome Game Review: Hakuoki ~Reimeiroku~

Our hero Ibuki Ryunosuke is on the brink of death until he’s found by Serizawa, the current leader of the Shinsengumi (prior to Kondo) who says to come with him. Ryunosuke is so out of it that after eating a riceball from Serizawa he starts hearing his mom’s voices in his head calling him a pathetic loser and that he’s shaming his dead father and ancestors from 1000 years! Ryunosuke decides he values his life so he decides to come along and ends up being Serizawa’s manbitch as he hangs out with some historical bishies.

Hijikata Toshizo – The thick of the plot of this whole game is Serizawa is a massive douchebag and historically the Shinsengumi don’t like this so they kill him. Ryunosuke’s father was a samurai but Ryu has no intentions of being one. In fact he’s only with the Shinsengumi as Serizawa’s slave bitch (well he calls him dog but really, same thing.) Ryu can’t sword fight if you paid him and he’s not exactly a sweet talker with the ladies so pretty much he’s no different than doormat Chizuru. Oh Otomate you sure write some winners! Anyway basically you get on Hijikata’s route by being a man cheerleader for him most of the time. At this time, Hijikata’s completely against using the Ochimizu and because Sannan and Serizawa’s follower Miimi are so bent on experimenting, he’s gotta do all the “cleanup” duty if you get my drift. The past flashback shows us how Kondo and Hijikata were really good friends and that Hijikata joined the Shinsengumi because he wanted to become a Samurai and not be some crappy medicine seller like his family. A lot of the group guys made fun of him & said crap behind his back saying that he’s an adult but he relies on his sister in Hino (which by the way has a statue of Hijikata there in real life!). So if dealing with the Rasetsu wackies wasn’t enough work for him, Hijikata also has to constantly deal with the shit Serizawa starts like the time when that stupid jiji wanted to kill some geishas at a bar and to save their lives both he and Ryu ended up chopping their ponytails off (not that I’m complaining tbh.) (My only complain is wth afterwards Hijikata’s sprite still has long hair lol wut.)

Eventually Serizawa tells Ryu that he’s free to go and he’s no longer his manbitch but Ryu decides he wants to hang around because he thinks the Shinsengumi dudes (save for the jiji) are pretty nice guys. Hijikata knows that he’ll just be in the way so he asks Yamazaki to make up some story to get Ryu to leave. Ryu leaves but feeling like something is gonna happen he ends up coming back…only to find that Hijikata & co. are planning to kill Serizawa (about time!) So then the night of the plan, Serizawa’s expected this so he goes apeshit, kills his geisha whore and then drinks the Ochimizu and starts going rabid Rasetsu on everyone. Fortunately Hijikata manages to stab & kill the guy, but not before idiot Ryu rushes in, and gets stabbed by a rabid Serizawa himself. Fortunately, Ryu’s life is saved, but due to his massive injuries he ends up losing his voice. Deciding he doesn’t know what he hell else to do with his life, the Shinsengumi doctor takes Ryu as his apprentice and the two start healing soldiers together as the wars go on. And so as they head to Edo, Yamazaki gets injured and dies. On his deathbed, he begs for Ryu to “watch over the Shinsengumi” for him. Unfortunately Ryu is unable to keep this promise because as people drop dead left & right and then he has to witness the depressing beheading of Kondo. (◞‸ლ) Eventually Hijikata tells Ryu to return to his hometown and claim that Hijikata is dead, threatening that if he doesn’t he will kill him then and there. Hijikata says he’s not actually going to die because he’s now found a reason to live (which is obviously Chizuru).

Ryu also has a brief encounter with Chizuru one night when everyone’s getting drunk before that final battle, but he has no idea that she’s a girl and they don’t have much a conversation since Ryu can’t speak. Ryu ends up returning to Hino and he walks by the river where presumeably Hijikata & Kondo had their man to man talks. He doesn’t know what will happen to the remainder of the Shinsengumi but says he believes that Hijikata will live on. The epilogue is from Chizuru’s POV after she’s married to Hijikata. They live in some shack away from everyone else because if anyone found out he’s still alive they might go after him. He tells Chizuru he asked Ryunosuke to bring back his photo to his hometown and tell everyone that he’s dead. He says that what’s left of him now is just a “ghost” and he wants to spend the rest of his life making love to Chizuru (♡´౪`♡). Well I guess he succeeded in that sense because Chizuru’s gotten knocked up. （//ˇ◡ˇ//） In the omake, everyone goes fishing and Hijikata’s dragged along to get him to take a break from working. I guess he’s so tired he ends up falling asleep at his rod and Kondo tells Ryunosuke to let him rest. Man despite my brief summary here this route was LONG. I mean it had to have taken me at least 20 hours if I combine my 1 week of playtime honestly. While I found the past arcs interesting, and the part where Ryu got tot watch the Shinsengumi downfall interesting….the earlier parts and anything with Serizawa made me wanna fall asleep and flip a desk at the same time. ( ´_ゝ`) Also Souji’s constant gay outbursts regarding Kondo really pissed me off so I was not looking forward to his route.

Okita Souji – Souji massive gay love for Kondo, starts bawwing and runs to his room when Hijikata & Kondo tell him to go back to Edo so he doesn’t become a crazy Yandere killer like Serizawa. Serizawa tricks Souji into thinking someone’s after Kondo so Souji goes nuts and kills the people, but Ryu tells Souji that Kondo doesn’t want him to become some brutal killer. Souji’s parents died when he was young so he was pretty much raised by his sister Mitsu. When she got married, Souji got all bitchy & jealous and not being able to handle him, Mitsu let Kondo take care of him instead. Kondo blames himself for his other pupils bullying Souji and turning him so negative. When Kondo told his pupils not to touch Souji, they instead would beat him up even more blaming him for being a tattle tail. Eventually Souji tells Kondo “Ive been thrown out by my sister haven’t I”. One day Kondo actually caught his pupils beating up Souji again and he wanted to stop them but then his teacher told him not to. He said Souji has to get through this on his own. ლ（இ e இ｀。ლ） This was possibly the ONLY TIME I’ve ever felt bad for Souji and wanted to give him a hug. And so a few days later, Kondo’s teacher decided to have an official “dojo match” with Souji and the guys who bully him so that it would give them an official place to take them on. Souji got beat up really badly but didn’t give up and he ended up winning – beating the guy nearly to death until Kondo stopped him. He hugged Souji telling him that he’s done well and Souji says he’s surprised Kondo doesn’t call him pitiful like everyone else. He then says that he’ll get stronger just for Kondo. щ(ಥДಥщ)

Eventually he gets tuburculosis and his health starts getting worse right as they’re headed out to Edo. Kondo tells Souji that he should go back to Edo and stay there but Souji begs Kondo not to abandon him.To try and prove his usefulness he goes out on his own with Ryunosuke following him, to look for the rabid Rasetsus running around. Souji then moans afterwards that Kondo wants him to have a pure heart but Souji’s heart is stained and he’ll never become like Kondo. He then sheds manly tears in front of Ryu. The next day he asks Ryunosuke to come out to drink at night with him telling him that he wants to kill Ryunosuke, before killing Serizawa. Ryu of course can’t fight for shit and just when he thinks he’s gonna die, Souji pushes him off a cliff into the river telling him to “decide his own destiny.” He returns to Hijikata & Sannan saying he “killed Ryu and threw him into the river”. Ryu gets rescued by a ship and decides for his own life, not to return to the Shinsengumi. He then leaves Kyoto and throws away his sword so that he doesn’t become like Souji. Sometime later, Ryu is wandering in the mountains and he’s starving so he passes out. Fortunately this time he’s not found by some nasty jiji, but by Chizurun who then calls Souji over. When Ryu realizes that it’s Souji, before he can say his name, Souji covers up his mouth and smacks him around. 😆

They take Ryu home and when he wakes up he’s shocked that Souji’s married and as he that he was dead. Ryu says that he’ll leave tonight and Souji will give him directions to the nearest village. He leaves and says to himself for the first time Souji felt “human” to him and hopes that maybe he’ll find someone special for himself one day too. In the Chizuru POV epilogue, she wonders if it’s ok to have let Ryunosuke go and not spend the night. Souji lies to her saying he didn’t know the guy saying that he wouldn’t let him stay and get in the way of their newly wed life 😆 Chizuru gets upset and says she won’t ask anymore about whether Souji knew the guy, but Souji eventually gives in and as they cuddle in bed he tells her about his past with the Shinsengumi/ He then says that he’ll probably die before her but no matter what his spirit will always be with her. In the fishing omake Souji is just acting like a kitten in front of Kondo and back to being an asshole behind his back in front of Ryu lol. After Kondo leaves Souji throws a squigly worm into Ryu’s kimono ／(^o^)＼ﾅﾝﾃｺｯﾀｲ. He then KICKS Ryunosuke and the fish back into the water and due to this everyone ends up having only radish for dinner. So I admit I got all emotional during the flashback to the past with Souji but then Otomate ruined it by repeating the flashback AGAIN. They of course further ruined it by having Souji be a major asshole as he always is and well by the end of his route I pretty much forgtotten my “FEELINGS” that I had earlier. Whatever Souji, I never liked you anyway you brat.

Saito Hajime – Hajime gives his rice bowl to NO ONE. He joins the Shinsengumi because he knew Hijikata & Kondo and comes in a little after Ryu arrived. Yamazaki tells Ryunosuke to GTFO if he has no intentions of being a warrior so to get him to be less of a pansy Hajime tries to teach Ryu some sword training skills. One night Ryu finds some dude tied up and turns out he was kidnapped by Miimi & co. to be used in the ochimizu experiments. The dude then goes nuts and into Rasetsu mode until Hajime cuts his head off. So then Serizawa goes apeshit again, and decides to “show the Kyoto people who’s boss” by placing the cut off head in the middle of town. Everyone starts fearing the Shinsengumi even further. We then see a flashback of how Hajime originally met with Kondo & friends. He stops by the Kondo’s dojo one day while Shinpachi is begging Heisuke for money. They have Souji fight with him and he comments on how Hajime’s left handed. Hajime has a massive left handedness complex too. They almost kill each other until Sano & Shinpachi hold them back. Hajime comments he joined the dojo because he wanted to find a place that had strong dudes cause all the other ones were pathetic whimps.

In this route they make Ryu a painter and have him paint people’s portraits cause apparently he’s the only one who’s got mad art skills. So then when Shinpachi hears that Hajime might kill Serizawa something crawls up his ass and he fights with Hajime in the rain while Ryu watches from the peanut gallery. Hajime ends up winning & stabbing Shinpachi in the gut.Not too soon after they kill Serizawa & Hijikata says that they have to kill Ryu and he has the option of either harakiri or drinking the Ochimizu. Hajime brings a pic saying that Serizawa promised to let Ryu go free if he drew a pic that would impress him. Ryu drew a pic of Hajime & Sano fighting and Hajime said if Serizawa were still alive he would have let Ryu go cause the pic is awesome. I guess he brings up a strong argument that Hijikata rages but agrees to let Ryunosuke go. Hajime threatens Ryu that if he says anything about what happened here Hajime will find & kill him. Ryu says that he’ll live on until he’s an old fart drawing the rest of his life. Ryunosuke then becomes an artist, drawing dead bodies of the Shinsengumi （ಠ_ಠ）.

He runs into Hajime in the forest one day while he’s in his Rasetsu form, shocked because he thought he heard that Hajime was dead. Hajime gets injured but before Ryu can call out to him, Chizuru runs up to him and take care of him. After Chizuru leaves, Ryu comes out & has a bro reunion with Hajime as they discuss on why he’s still alive etc. Ryu then asks if he can draw a pic of Hajime some day and they part ways. In the Chizuru epilogue, Hajime tells her about Ryunosuke. He finishes by saying that he finally got in touch with Ryu today and he finshed his portrait: a portrait of him fighting in his Rasetsu form during that battle where they met in the forest. In the summer omake, Ryu goes on patrol with Heisuke, Hajime, Sano & Shinpachi and splits up with Hajime as he drools at some swords being sold. He comes back to buy it later but someone already bought it, so he gets really pissy and starts throwing chopsticks at people who mention the word Sword during dinner. To be honest, Hajime’s route was rather dull. Let’s face it, one of the best features about Hajime is his clumsiness with the ladies and honestly without Chizuru……he’s just a boring srs sword fighting man.

Toudou Heisuke – Heisuke was actually quite badass & manly in this game which makes me wonder what dafuq happened in the originl?? Shockingly he actually kills the rasetsu without a 2nd thought when it first attacks Ryu. He and Ryu also joke around and get along with each other cause they are close in age I guess. Hijikata also asks Heisuke & Ryu to interfere in Sannan’s & Mimi’s Ochimizu experiments. Heisuke then threatens to kill Chizuru’s dad if he finds out that the Ochimizu is harmful to the Shinsengumi. They basically spend most of the route chasing these crazy Rasetsus around and killing them. In the past Heisuke heard rumors about Kondo’s doujo and he came to observe it. Shinpachi was so happy that ANYONE came to their doujo because apparently there were bad rumors about it. He had a battle with Shinpachi who told him not to hold back. When Heisuke finds out about the plot to kill Serizawa and Ryu along with it, he gets upset that he can’t do anything because he knows Ryu is innocent and has nothing to do with Serizawa and his cronies. As the time gets closer he tells Ryunosuke to GTFO asap. So then Ryunosuke turns into a whiny bitch and goes IF I LEAVE HERE WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH MYSELF (which apparently was of no concern to him in the routes. :roll:)

Heisuke tells him to stop being a whiny bitch and live his own life and let go of his past. Ryu still refuses to leave and Hijikata comes & breaks up their argument. So then suddenly they find that Miimi took his lab and ran off so they run around looking for him. Ryunosuke finally finds Miimi and finds out that that they planned to kill Serizawa. Heisuke gets pissed at Miimi for using Kyoto people for his experiments and whips out his sword. Ryu sides with Heisuke as well but then Miimi gets his Rasetsu army to mob them. Heisuke of course has to save Ryu’s pathetic ass and then Souji, Hijikata & Hajime show up to help support them. Afterwards, Heisuke takes an injured Ryu to a lake in the forest and points his sword at him. That’s when Ryu realizes why Heisuke was trying to get him to GTFO earlier on. Heisuke doesn’t wanna kill his pansy buddy so he just cuts his hair off and tells him “run away & live on.” Heisuke then returns and lies to Hijikata saying that Ryunosuke died because of the wounds inflicted from all of Miimi’s goons. Hijikata knows that he’s lying but says “don’t do this again” and lets it go. Ryunosuke goes down to Oosaka and meets some dude like Heisuke and the 2 of them start a hand made accessory store. When he hears news of Heisuke dying he cries some manly tears.

So then Ryu and his store partner decide to move their store to Edo. One night while he’s about to close shop he hears some drunks arguing with some dude and turns out that dude is Heisuke, who isn’t dead after all. However he also sees that Heisuke is able to turn into Rasetsu on & off. Before he can call out to Heisuke, Chizurun shows up. Ryu wanted to talk to him but is like “ah live on bro~”. In the Chizuru epilogue, Heisuke is writing Chizuru some love letter XD He also hears that Chizuru’s dad is gonna be stopping by but Heisuke starts panicking cause he’s gotta ask him for Chizuru’s hand in marriage (๑´ლ`๑)♡. Heisuke asks Chizuru that if she hears anything about an Ibuki Ryunosuke to let him know as he was kind of a friend of his. That night Chizuru says that even if her father comes, without Heisuke she’ll be extremely lonely. They crawl in the same futon together and she asks Heisuke to tell her about his past in the Shinsengumi before she arrived. In the summer omake, Ryunosuke goes patrolling and this time goes with Heisuke & co. They end up chasing down some delinquent, but because they have to fight him, they destroy some store front and the lady baws making them fix it. Eh I found Heisuke’s route to be extremely dull to be honest. His Chizuru epilogue was really adorable though and I think he suffers from the Hajime syndrome of “pretty boring unless he’s around da ladies.”

Harada Sanosuke – Sano had the best route in the game because he was pretty much a BRO to Ryunosuke and helped him out as a wingman. Also this route had romance which actually made me not fall asleep for once. In this route Serizawa goes to harass the Geishas again but Kosuzu doesn’t wanna listen to the stupid jiji which pisses him off and she refuses to apologize. He smacks her with his fan but Ryu’s like wtf are u doing dude and protects her. Later Kosuzu slaps Ryu saying he doesn’t know shit about her when he runs into her. She slapps him because he said that all Maikos will sleep with any man as long as they get money. When Sano hears that Ryu insulted Kosuzu he rages at him and drags him to Kosuzu’s house to apologize. When they get there, Sano pushes Ryu’s head down saying they’re sorry and she’s like “it’s not like he’s sorry whats the point”. She explains that she’s not like some body selling whore at all. Ryu feels really bad and sincerely apologizes, so Kosuzu also apologizes for slapping him. Afterwards whenever he goes to see her, Sano acts like a wingman bro telling him to talk to her xDDD In the meantime he keeps Serizawa busy and then gives Ryunosuke thumbs up and winks from far away lol. Kosuzu asks Ryu out on a date and they meet up the following day =D

When he finds out that dudes help her change her obi he gets really jealous. She also mentions that she can’t chose her kimonos or hair styles, they are all chosen by her mother. After Ryu comes back from his date he’s so out of it everyone thinks something is wrong with him, but its cause he’s got Kosuzu on the brain. Sano takes him outside and has a bro to bro chat with him about womens. xDDD (๑´ლ`๑)♡ Ryu also starts getting jealous of the idea that she has other male customers even though she doesn’t do anything except give them food and dance. He gets all tsundere around Kosuzu as well lol. 萌（♡´∀`♡）え One night he gets a letter from Kosuzu asking him on a date again and he meets her the next day. He asks her to speak normally to him instead of Kyotoben but she says that when she was brought to the maiko house she was told to forget her normal way of speaking. When she spoke in non Kyotoben she would get beaten. щ(ಥДಥщ) She finally starts talking normally to him. She tells him that in the past her parents raised her only to sell her as a geisha in the future. She was then brought to the maiko house and forced to learn how to dance and perform at the Shimabara. She thought about running away but if you do they would catch you and injure your legs so that you couldn’t walk..and that a lot of geiko girls are unable to walk now. She also mentioned that a lot of girls can’t learn how to dance properly so the only way to make money is to whore your body out and sleep with the dudes. She said that’s why she got mad when Ryu said that she would sleep with anyone because she only would do it with the person she loves. щ(ಥДಥщ)

In the meantime Sano tries to train Ryu in fighting but he can’t stop his feelings for Kosuzu and can’t focus on anything else. Sano tells Ryu a story about his old friend who once fell in love with a geiko as well, and well the short story is he picked hoes before bros and so Sano ended up going to Edo and coming to Kondo’s dojo lol. One of the warriors and a friend of Sano’s there, has a geiko girlfriend and they find out about their escapades, so they force him to drink the Ochimizu and he of course goes nuts and kills his girlfriend before I they had to kill his crazy self. щ(ಥДಥщ) Ryu gets pissed since he doesn’t understand why they couldn’t just date each other properly. After this incident Ryu realizes he’s really in love with Kosuzu but realizes right now there’s nothing he can do for her and gives Serizawa’s ho Ume, the pin to give to Kosuzu cause he decided he won’t see her anymore. During his patrolling one night, Ryu runs into Kosuzu who then tells him that basically the girl who was killed was her best friend Aguri. When Ryu says they shouldn’t see each other anymore she says she refuses not to see him, and pulls out the hair pin that he passed on to her. She tells him that with that pin she can wear it when shes not being a maiko. She says she doesn’t want to be apart from him because she loves him. Sadly before she can finish confessing her stupid cunt bitch mother shows up saying that Kosuzu already has a prearranged fiance. Kosuzu yells saying that she doesn’t give a shit and she will not marry someone she doesn’t love. The mom then takes the hair pin and tosses it away and takes crying & screaming Kosuzu back into the house. (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ 彡┻━┻

Turns out Kosuzu’s mom wants her to marry some rich erojiji so that she can become a Geiko since that apparently requires a lot of money. So after moping around, finally Ume gives Ryu some advice and he decides to be manly and run away with Kosuzu together. They meet up at the river bank at night because of a letter he snuck in to her. He tells her he can’t give her wealth & riches but she says as long as she has Ryu, she doesn’t need anything else. They hug and smooch in the moonlight and she tells him to call her by her real name, Shizu. (♡´౪`♡) This basically gives you the Kosuzu ending. If in chapter 2 you make a different choice, you will head straight for the Sano ending instead. In that one Ryunosuke just continues training with Sano for the most part but the rest of the stuff with Kosuzu is the same. (Although it was annoying having to skip through pretty much the whole route.) While Ryunosuke wangsts Sano comes in and beats him up giving him a lock of her hair that she passed on to Ryu through Sano. Apparently it’s because soon she will be forced to have sex with dat erojiji and Sano’s like “YOU GONNA TAKE THAT YOU PUSSY!?” Ryunosuke starts crying saying he loves her but he feels powerless. ( ´_ゝ｀) Sigh. That night they hear of an incident at the Shimbara and Ryunosuke sees it as an opportunity to take Kosuzu and run away. He asks Hijikata’s permission to come along and Sano asks as well so Ryu ends up going with them. Because of a letter he passed on to her, he meets up with Kosuzu behind some building and they embrace. (*´ω`*) Unfortunately her bitch mother catches them saying she will not her daughter go. Fortunately though before the dudes can attack, Sano shows up to fight them instead.

This gives Ryunosuke & Kosuzu a chance to run off and they thank him before doing so. Sano tells everyone he has no idea where Ryunosuke ran off to. What a Bro. Harada Bronosuke 😆 Ryu & Shizu run off to Osaka and live together thanks to an aquaintance of Sano’s. Because war started heading towards Oosaka, the two of them decided to move on to Edo. They buy Ryu a western outfit and he promises to save money to buy Shizu a new kimono. Just then he runs into Sano with Chizuru and they’re both like AHHHH!? I thought you were dead! LOL. Chizuru’s shy so she runs off and so Shizu says she’ll go home too, so that Sano & Ryu can have their BRO TIME lol. In the Chizuru epilogue, Sano & Chizuru are living in her old house on the outskirts of Edo. She babbles about how she isn’t sure if it’s ok to be this happy and then Sano has to convince her brainless self that it’s OK. He also tells her about Ryunosuke and his time back in the Shinsengumi. In the Summer omake Sano and Ryu go to Shimabara where Sano asks him about how he’s doing with Kosuzu. One of the Geikos gets attacked by some douchebags and since Ryu’s a pansy who can’t do anything, it’s up to Bronosuke to save the day. Afterwards they use some sake to clean Ryu’s wounds from the poison, despite his protests and he cries from pain lol. So yeaaa Sano had the best route. It’s more a Ryu x Shizu route but yeaaa I actually found it enjoyable and I actually paid attention instead of multitasking or playing games on my phone. If Reimeiroku is worth playing, it would only be for Sano’s route.

Serizawa Kamo – God this route was painful to sit through and was DECEPTIVELY LONG. While Ryu is passed out at the beginning there, we see Serizawa’s POV and Kondo suggests to take him back to their place so that he doesn’t die. Kondo is such a nice guy man ;_;. Serziawa always called Ryu his bitch and kicks him around even though Shinpachi asks him not to do that. We basically see all those scene of Serizawa randomly causing riots & killing people from this route. When Ryu asks Serizawa why he sticks that dead guy’s head in the middle of town and he’s just like “whatever I don’t care if it bothers anyone ( ´_ゝ`).” When the Geikos don’t strip for him, he rages and then forces Hijikata to cut off their hair ( ´_ゝ`). So then Serizaw gets sick, probably with some STD. He starts forgetting people randomly and isn’t able to pick things up. When at the Shimabara one night he’s suddenly like WHERE AM I WHO ARE YOU and starts beating up everyone & throwing things sigh. Suddenly in the room next door Chikage shows up (yay!) and tells Serizawa that he’s seen many people with the same disease forget everything and eventually die. When Ume wants to kill him after taking enough his shit I guess, he tells her he won’t mind if he was to be killed by her. He then tells her a story of how there was some ho he used to be in love with, and he got the same disease her (Definitely some STD lol). One night Serizawa starts coughing & wheezing and Ryunosuke can tell he’s on his last moments so he leaves him alone with Ume. When he leaves the room, he runs into Hijikata who tells him that Miimi was forced to harakiri himself. When Ryu goes to tell Serizawa the news, he runs into a crying Ume who was told by Serizawa to never come to see him again.

Ryu suggests that if he tells the others about his disease, they will let him leave the Shinsengumi without killing him. Serizawa’s like “lol no I taught them to be assholes just like me!” ( ´_ゝ｀) When they go to eat out one night, they put something in Ryu’s food and it makes him fall asleep. In the meantime Ume waits in Serizawa’s room for him and when he returns he tells her to GTFO. She refuses saying that he’s lying by saying he’s “tired” of her. He then tells her that the Shinsengumi plan to kill him tonight and that if she stays she’ll get killed as well. So then Ryunosuke wakes up from his nap and runs outside only to find Shinpachi and Hajime battling it out in the rain. He then runs back to the house, and of course by then Serizawa’s killed Ume ala Hijikata’s route. Hijikata then goes to kill Ryunosuke because he tried to stop them from killing Serizawa, but the jiji then drinks the Ochimizu and protects Ryunosuke by taking the hit instead. He tells Ryu to GTFO and when Ryunosuke refuses, Serizawa beats him down and kicks him out of the house into the rain. With an injured shoulder, Ryunosuke runs away. Several days later he sees Souji looking for him on Hijikata’s orders but manages to hide without being discovered. He keeps being on the run until finally one day he receives a letter from Hirama, (who was a close servant of Serizawa’s) and he cries with joy knowing an ally of is still alive. He continues bawwing saying he couldn’t save Serizawa. Hirama explains that before he got attacked, Serizawa let Hirama escape with some money. Hirama then says he’s going to Serizawa’s hometown family and asks Ryu to come with him if he has no place to go. Before they leave Kyoto, they run into Chizuru who asks directions to Matsumoto sensei’s place. When they get there they end up working for his family doing various field work.

Ryu’s shoulder had healed but he lost feeling in his right arm so he was only able to do things like pick grass with his left one. Serizawa ends up haunting Ryunosuke in his dreams asking him to have a drink together and Ryu cries like a weenie again, while finally drinking for once. After he wakes up, Ryunosuke tells Hirama that he’s gonna follow the Shinsengumi until the end so I guess he goes to stalk them a la normal ending in the original game. While they watch over basically the same scenes we’ve seen in the original game, Serizawa is also our tour guide! Yay just what I’ve always wanted! ( ´_ゝ`) Eventually Ryu runs into Chikage who’s like “wtf are you doing here are you high?” After Ryu says he wants to see the end of the Shinsengumi, Chikage decides to be his new tour guide this time 😆 Also Chizurun comes along for the ride. After Hijikata kicks the bucket, spring comes and Ryu reflects on his journey etc. In the Chizuru epilogue, Chizuru is living with Chikage together as in the first game ending. Chizuru bitches about how the neighbors think they’re a married couple when they aren’t and Chikage’s like “we may as well be lol.” He then pretends to be upset saying “do you hate me? :(” and she gets all dere and says she loves him and he’s like >=D! Hahahaha xDDDD. He then tells her he has to go join his oni buddies in the west and says that if Chizuru wants she can come with him, as his waifu. Chizuru leans on Chikage’s back and asks him to bring her along. In the summer omake, Serizawa asks Ryu where he came from. Then he continues to make Ryu be his slave bitch as usual meh. Gah this route was so deceptively long. It was only 5 chapters but chapter 5 was like the length of 3 chapters combined or something. ( ´_ゝ｀) Also Otomate’s attempt to make me pity the stupid jiji by making him all nice and o/c didn’t work. You made me hate his stupid ass for 5 routes and suddenly you want me to like him? Nope. ಠ_ಠ

Wow that was so painfully long I am just mentally exhausted. To show you how long it is, Hijikata’s route (and first play through) took me 1 week and the routes following (with skip) took me 8-9 hours each. We’re pretty much reaching Hiiro no Kakera levels here. Yea my friends were like “you shouldn’t play this game, there’s no romance, it’s not worth it.” Yea for the most part they were right but SOMEONE HAD TO TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM щ(ಥДಥщ). I do want to complain though because it’s not just the “no romance” factor or the “hero is a male” factor that annoyed me. Let’s start with Ryunosuke. He’s a fucking pansy. He gets beat up every time, he learns no sword skills, he’s just doormat from START TO FINISH. Seriously this man makes NO PROGRESS in the game. Ok maybe you can say his artistic skills progress in Hajime’s route, and he grows a pair in Sano’s route (because Sano’s a bro) but everywhere else he’s a pathetic loser bitch. He may as well have been a female doormat heroine Otomate loves writing but at least with those, I can get some romance. With Ryunosuke I just get to roll my eyes at how much of a pathetic loser he is and the shit he takes from Serizawa. The game is really long so that even where there are historical parts that interest me, such as the beheading of Kondo or the flashback to Souji’s past…this interest is quickly destroyed with repetitive scenarios and really boring dialogue. I would literally be falling asleep or doing other things (like cleaning my toilet) because I just couldn’t care less. It’s not that I don’t like history but they just drag it out and drag it out.

There was so much blood like whoa. Okay yea I realize they kill Rasetsu but compared to the original game omg blood festa. Even the sprites were just COVERED IN BLOOD this time. I think they just wanted an excuse to throw blood all over the place with this game cause pretty much every single battle everyone would just be drenched in blood stains. Aside from Hijikata, Souji and Sano’s routes, I found the rest of the game extremely dull. Hajime & Heisuke’s routes contributed nothing to the story and I hated Serizawa so god damn much that I really couldn’t give a shit about him by the time I got to his route (which btw was mostly a repeat of scenes from all the other routes so whatever really.) Complaints aside let me just say I did enjoy the Chizuru epilogues. Not only was she voiced but the guys would call her by her name if you left it default. That was a nice touch but they were SO SHORT that I can’t say it was worth sitting through the routes for. The only route I actually enjoyed sitting through was Sano. It was seriously the best route in the game and if you want to touch this game, just play Sano’s route and forget the rest. The summer omake scenes were cute I guess but nothing to write home about. I am sincerely just glad to get this game and Hakuoki out of my hair. I never really thought it was THAT good of a game and while I do love me some Kazuki Yone art, I don’t know if this game is really worth it. I can only see someone enjoying this game if 1. they just love long games 2. they love historical sheit 3. they just wanna see samurais killing things 4. they just want to see 8 hours of their favorite Hakuoki bishies. Anyway I am done with Hakuoki; not touching Musouroku with a 40 foot pole.

13 thoughts on “Otome Game Review: Hakuoki ~Reimeiroku~”

Thank you for your review & your ‘experiment’ to play it. I didn’t dare putting it on my PSP. As far as I read, everything seemed the same as another route, where Ryu met one of Shinsengumi member, living together, tried to kill him, then met him again after married/live with Chizuru. That’s a lot boring plot. I think I’ll stick with Peter Pan if I must choose. It’s more fun and original.

haha yea I hear you on being sick of Hakuoki /puke
And you’re right every route is the same as you said…nothing interesting EXCEPT for Sano’s route. God it’s like a diamond in the rough as far as this game is concerned lol.

Wow kudos to you for completing this game! I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up cos firstly my knowledge of japanese is not as good and secondly even if I did play it I don’t think I could bring myself to finish all the routes cos i’d be bored to death T_T

The only saving grace was probably the lovey dovey epilogues with each of the guys but even so ugh it seems like such a drag to reach to that point without rage quitting xD So thank you Hinano-san for taking the time and patience to summarise all these routes for us! =D

I absolutely ADORE Hijikata, Sano and Kazama. Those 3 are my fave characters hands down. Most girls are gaga over Saito and Souji, not that there’s anything wrong with that but meh I don’t see why they’re SOO popular @_@ I’m probably going to get shot and trampled by rabid fangirls for saying this.

Anyway I’m having my fangirl moment with Hijikata now rofl. So he DOES get some lol and I thought Sano would be the only one with the baby carriage xD Ok well I suppose all of them would have gone all the way by now if they’re living with Chizuru. But I expected her to be preggers by now in Kazama’s epilogue. Oh well maybe they’ll get busy after she officially becomes his wife =O

I guess they’d get busy after they’ve moved west so the trip would be less painful 😆
I agree with you on The 3 characters you mentioned…I like them as well and yea Hajime & Souji bore me …actually Souji pisses me off so yea. XD

There wasn’t too much to read since the protagonist had a voice and spoke a lot of his lines as well but really you wouldn’t miss that much anyway…”lets slice & dice some Rasetsu yay” (´･ω･`；)

Thanks for the review and congrats on completing the game because I probably would never finish the game unless I leave my PSP the whole time while I do something else. However, I probably wouldn’t be able to put up through all the routes. So I’m also thankful for your live broadcast. I wasn’t able to actually see it live, but I saw your past videos and watched the Chizuru epilogues only. They were really cute, but they were sooo short >< I played the past hakuouki games, I just couldn't put up with this one b/c the main story for one thing… the main was a guy and I had a feeling it was gonna be dull and boring. And so it was…haha

haha as I always say “I play so YOU don’t have to!” 😆 yea like I said I enjoyed the Sano route cause at least the main guy had some romance….eh honestly I’ve played galge as a “guy” before…the issue is just lack of romance and the story was just really DULL. I can only imagine incredible history buffs or just rabid hakuoki fangirls enjoying this and no one else

lol, now I dunno if I still wanna play it. I mean, My eyes and brain are already bleeding from quinrose games and if I add this again, I might need to ask my doctor to look for a brain and eye donor already. I don’t understand the bloody reason for making this. I mean, why not make a fandisk where you can bitch with Ryuunosuke instead? I might have the guts to play it one bit at all(even in exchange of my vital body organs xD)

Sano’s route is moe as usual.And mr. no.1 popular dude in Japan, Saitou is as boring as ever. Well, I love Okita because i love yandere, his seiyuu and well, the fact that he is obsessed with isami xDD

just play Sano’s route and consider it done 😆
Yea I can’t really see Hajime’s popularity….maybe I don’t have Japanese fangirl vision that makes him seem super wonderful or some sheit.
Lol Sho taking the #1 spot xD

Maybe I DID. The first time I played hakuouki, I was in love with Saitou(I used to love those speechless, cold shoujo manga heroes.lol) until i met the yandere-gumi and I start seeing Okita better than him.

only feb 2012(1=Tokiya, 2=Sho, 3= Masato,4 =Saitou) is my only issue without Saitou as no. 1. My whole 2011 issue has him on the no.1 spot consecutively. :’D

aww bummer the routes were even boring to read until they get to the chizuru epilogues…i wish there was more chizuruxkazama scenes ><..btw are you reviewing hanaoni next since i see youve been posting it on tumblr